environmentthatmakes it impossible to govern, that makes it impossible to bring people together because they make campaign commitments right away in a campaign environment in a polarized environment. governor romney wants to be elected president because he wants to govern and get things done. he did that in massachusetts. he was able to work with a democratic legislature -- 87% of the state house and state senate in massachusetts, when he was the republican governor, were democrats. and yet they were able to cut taxes 19 times and get things done. they improved the bond rating for the state of massachusetts, by the way. they got an upgrade. we've seen a downgrade in the united states. they saw household incomes go up under governor romney's time in office by $5,000. household incomes have gone down by $4,300 under president obama. unemployment went down to 5.6% under governor romney in massachusetts. it's gone up to above 8% under president obama. he knows how to govern. and he knows how to lay out the principle, bring people together to achieve those goals in the legislative process, a

producers to supply affordable, cleaner energy, while protectingourenvironment. acrossamerica, these technologies protect air - by monitoring air quality and reducing emissions... ...protect water - through conservation and self-contained recycling systems... ... and protect land - by reducing our footprint and respecting wildlife. america's natural gas... domestic, abundant, clean energy to power our lives... that's smarter power today. it is now 11:00 p.m. here on the east coast. 8:00 out west and you're watching msnbc's continuing coverage of the first presidential debate of the 2012 election. just about half an hour ago, president obama and republican challenger mitt romney wrapped up a 90-minute debate that covered not at all a wide range of topics. limited to domestic politics. we knew tonight but basically these guys talked about sunday morning beltway show favorites like "similarson bowls" and medicare and social security but left out a lot of other big domestic issues that have been major political issues including immigration, women's rights, specifically with issue

south and east, that we could have createdanenvironmentwherewe could leave and have them capable of carrying out their continued counterinsurgency missions. the fact is, al qaeda is on the rise throughout the middle east. the fact is that they believe that we are weak. they believe we are withdrawing. i talk to these leaders all over the middle east. and this is part of that scenario. look at what's happened in iraq. over 4,000 young americans, and we now have al qaeda on the comeback. anyway, go ahead, willie. >> history is what it is, senator. i think a lot of us wish we weren't in afghanistan anymore, that we hadn't lost 2,000 lives. >> but there was a way out. it's not as if it was an impossible situation. almost all of us agree there was a way that we could have succ d succeeded. >> fair enough, but we are where we are. so what would you do today? why would another year, five years, ten years change afghanistan? >> i would make a decision as to whether we had a significant number of troops listening to my military leadership to remain there to carry out an environment where